When I was about five years old, my parents bought a fancy
reel-to-reel stereo tape recorder. Closed, it fascinated me, a large, thick,
squat black box, with a silver central latch closing its split doors. If you
unfastened the latch and opened the heavy doors, you revealed the secrets: speakers
covered in silvery-colored metallic mesh on the top of each thick door and
small, closed compartments on the bottom, the doors hiding the machinery in the
middle. The inner compartments on each door had a small, metal-rimmed hole, centered,
just the perfect size to insert a finger into. If you inserted your index finger
and pulled up, another latch would release and a little door would swing
upwards, presenting you with a hank of wire ending in what I now know is now
called an RCA connector. You could thread the connector through the hole and shut
the compartment, then remove the door from the portion that they covered by
sliding them off of their hinges. The RCA connectors could then be plugged into
the back of the central portion.
The central part was full of controls, sockets to plug in
microphones, more controls for the mics, and fasteners for tape reels. It took
reels that were so big, they couldn’t fit inside the covering speakers when the
doors was closed. I loved the ritual of hauling the big box, covered in fake black
leather, out of the cupboard and settling with it under the grand piano. There,
I would open the doors, slide the speakers off of their hinges and move them a
few feet away, for better playback sound quality. Then, I got out the wires and
plugged them in and plugged the machine into the wall socket. I would take out
the empty reel and place it on the right-hand hub and the connector turned to
lock the reel onto the machine. The full reel of tape that we kids were allowed
to use was always readily available. I would place it on the left-hand hub and
fasten it down, too. Finally, I could thread the tape into the machine and plug
in a microphone, and start playing “radio.”
My brothers, Ted and Danny, and I had invented this game. When
they first got the tape recorder, my parents had forbidden Danny and me from touching
it for fear that we would break it because we were, in their minds, careless little
kids. Ted, being older and technically inclined, was allowed to use it. After several months, it had lost its newness
and we had demonstrated with Ted’s supervision that we were very careful, so we
could take it out. We would come up with a script, unwritten, of course, and tape
ourselves performing it. Sometimes, we created sarcastic versions of various
commercials that we had heard on television or on the radio. Sometimes, it was entire
radio-plays, complete with sound effects and commercials. We had a repertoire of
comedy that I practiced regularly. My brothers were in school all day but I
only had half-days in kindergarten. I started to play radio by myself, frequently,
and to play back my recorded efforts to my mother. Together with the boys and all
by myself, we produced polished versions of the same scripts, erasing the ones
that didn’t sound good. We had only the single reel of tape I had practiced for
hours and hours over the days, weeks, and months that followed.
The reason for my constant practice was this - I didn’t like
my voice at first, listening to the playback, hearing my voice as others did, because
of my flat intonation. It contrasted in my mind with the actors and announcers that
I heard on television. I practiced over and over to sound more like the professionals.
This frequent practice taught me how to speak with a melodious voice. In this
way, I learned how to speak so I wouldn’t sound different from “normal” people.
Occasionally, when I’m concentrating on something else, the
flat intonation creeps back in to my voice but I usually notice it before I
talk that way for too long. Since speaking with inflection isn’t entirely
natural to me, it requires more effort. I enjoy the silence of my own thoughts after
a long day.
